82 Sunny days

I need to get a couple more typical days out of the way before I start on some of the more memorable. Every morning we made our way to the International House for breakfast. It was so cheap and we got a lot of food to start the day. Sunny Jim recommended it. Sunny Jim did some kind of work at the Hillel Street work Project... or was it the Berkeley Free Church? Both of them had deals where you could be sent out on jobs. The Free Church also had a crash pad deal. We had a thing going with our hidden spot on campus and the hostel, so we didn't pay attention.

We didn't do any of the free food things either. I guess we were kind of loners and didn't like standing on line for that kind of crap. Plus there was always trouble one way or another. Someone freaking out or criminal types wreaking havoc with good stuff going on. So it was big breakfast in the morning, peanut butter and jelly during the day and maybe a burger or whatever we came across at night. Sometimes I bought stuff at the store and shared with the workers at the hostel.

International House

I didn't hit either of those job places cause I was sticking with the Free Clinic. I mentioned before that it was mostly manly labor stuff. I did go to one job at a house remodel, but I'll talk about that later. I do remember going in one day to the office to see if I could find LBJ for some reason. I'm thinking it was the Free Church. I'll never forget a family I ran into there. I thought "Wow. California." Two parents totally blonde. Three little kids totally blonde. All tan, all barefoot. They were needing help with one thing or another. I don't think I ever saw such a blonde family in New York.

LBJ was working with some other guy on a new remodel. Back then they didn't completely change the character of the old houses. They cleaned them up, fixed electrical and plumbing, and painted. Lots of painting. The other guy had a vehicle and was going to give LBJ a ride back to the center of town. Just as they were getting in the vehicle a couple of Berkeley cops jumped out of their cars, rifles pointed. Threw them against the car, spread their legs. Pushed them to the ground and handcuffed them. Rifles pointed. I guess the car was stolen, or wasn't, never got the outcome. If it was at least the guy was trying to work. Right? But there were definitely other forces at work in Berkeley. Hippies got the knee to the groin every so often for a while. Ok if there's a reason, people weren't crying, but just for having hair it's not cool.

Seems like a lot of people knew Sunny Jim though. He was one of those degreed hippies but he lived pretty hard. He also dealt a lot of pot. We'd end up over his place. It was just a mattress on the floor and posters on the wall. You'd pile in there and find a spot on the bed to sit. Listen to some music. Quicksilver Messenger Service was a favorite. The stereo going back and forth, back and forth in the ears. Someone was always sifting the seeds and stems from the pot in a shoebox lid. Cool. Pot was half the price in California. I think we paid $10 an ounce. And it was good, but nice. Not the crazy strong hybrids they have now. Just a much softer edge to the high.

We'd sit and talk about music or how messed up society is. You'd think we'd all be rolling all over the bed having sex, but life wasn't completely like that. There was actually a lot more conversation than sex, drugs or rock n' roll. People spoke about how they were going to live differently than what was expected. Some of them did. They disappeared one way or another from the mainstream. Took working class jobs to survive or maybe worked a trade. Nothing powerful. Just not all about money. So people that did it, got away, sometimes had good lives, sometimes hard lives. Some of the humans were just hanging as a trend. They're the ones that went for the money.

 

But Sunny Jim was pretty cool. He wanted to help people out and gave advice on how to stay out of trouble. If you could get by unharmed and find a place to go that was a good thing. He told LBJ about jobs at the Oakland work center, or whatever it was, that sounded pretty good. Some of the jobs paid over $4.00 an hour. Minimum wage was $1.65 in California, $1.60 nationwide. So good. It wasn't highfalutin, but we could live on it. We'd take a trip to Oakland to check it out. I was just going to go along for the ride.